Final Reports

Ted Sammis, Jose Fernandez Chair Activities 2006-2009

In general the Joe Fernandez chair (http://cahe.nmsu.edu/aes/fernandezchair/) supported bringing in speakers, conducting research and publishing articles, supporting student activities, grant writing and development of web resources.

Speakers

The Jose Fernandez Chair was used to bring speakers to New Mexico State University to enrich the students and faculty. The speakers included.

Jim Berry, Federal State and County Volunteers Issues and Problems April 2 2007.

Dr. Corbett, CEO of AWhere gave a talk in 2007 on "Next Generation Mapping: Sharing and Utilizing Interactive Maps". This resulted in a one unit course offered at the beginning of the fall semester at NMSU in 2008 in which AWhere personnel taught "Practical Mapping of Environmental and Business Data" CRN: 38662, Section M03. The course is being offered again in the fall of 2009.

Dr. Jiftah Ben-Asher, Professor with the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel in 2008 presented "Effect of Global Warming on the Secondary Factor Affecting Water Use Efficiency and Irrigation Management". This resulted in a proposal being submitted to the Arid Lands Consortium in the summer 2009 on Remote sensing of evapotranspiration for forests

Publications

Nine journal articles related to crop production were partially supported by the chair and are listed at Visit http://aces.nmsu.edu/aes/fernandezchair/publications-sponsored-b.html. Specifically, two journals came about exclusive because of the out reach goal of the Joe Fernandez chair. The first journal article was "Improving the Chile Industry of New Mexico Through Industry, Agriculture Experiment Station, and Cooperative Extension Service Collaboration: A Case Study". Journal of Extension 47 (1): on line at http://www.joe.org/joe/2009february/rb4.php by T. W. Sammis Jose Fernandez Chair, M. K. Shukla, J. G. Mexal, P. W. Bosland, L. A. Daugherty. 2009.

The second journal article related to teaching was "Integrating Hoop House Construction and Operation into an Undergraduate General Education Horticulture Class" HortTechnology 19: 445-451:2009. This was generated from teaching research on the horticulture 100 class use of a hoop house in teaching.

Student activities

Outreach involves not only working with farmers but working with students. Student in the horticulture 100 class built Hoop houses using material purchased with the Joe Fernandez chair money. A new 1 unit graduate level class "Remote Sensing Use in Agriculture and Forestry" was taught in the spring of 2008 and 2009 and the teaching cost supported by the Joe Fernandez chair (http://hydrology1.nmsu.edu/Teaching_Material/Agro500/Agro500.htm). A graduate student from the University of Connecticut whose major professor is Dr. M. Gebremichael and an undergraduate student from NMSU received support from the chair to bring a new technology, a Siniliometer to NMSU.The students made measurements over the desert and over turf at Santa Teresa, (Gardner Turfgrass Inc.) to compare Siniliometer measurement of sensible heat to the sonic point measurements of sensible heat. The results were presented at the AGU meeting in 2008 and a journal article is being written on the subject. An under graduate student was hired to work with climate data and develop a data base on farming operations at the Leyendecker Farm.

Grants

The Joe Fernandez Chair has limited financial resources so it is import to leverage the resources by using the money to help develop new grants. The Chair funds were used to help develop the USDA Specialty Crop Research proposal:

*Advanced Sensing and Management to Optimize Water and Nitrogen Use in Tree Crops. Principal Investigators coordinator at each university: Paul Brown University of California, primary university, Ted Sammis New Mexico State University, Leonardo Lombardini Texas A & M University Duration Sept 30 2008 - Aug 30, 2011 funded at $3,221,134

*A second proposal Enhancing Ecosystem Services From Agricultural Lands: Management, Quantification, And Developing Decision Support Tools was submitted in May 2009 to EPA and funds from the Joe Fernandez chair was used to pay Dr. Miller (adjutant professor NMSU) to help edit the proposal.

Web Resources

Communication with growers and homeowners is important and an effective method is the use of the internet. Consequently, the Joe Fernandez chair paid to have web material created or moved from servers that will disappear in the future to the NMSU college of Agriculture server including:

Collaboration with researchers at other universities results in joint grants, publications, and software development. The Joe Fernandez chair support travel to international meeting and travel in the United States to strengthen the collaboration efforts of Dr. Sammis, the chair holder. This increased collaboration resulted in several journal articles with professors at the University of Connecticut including a remote sensing article and 7 journals articles related to dust generated by agriculture operations not listed in the publication list because they were air quality articles, not crop production articles. Collaboration has also occurred between Israel and NMSU in the submitting of a proposal on use of remote sensing to calculate Evapotranspiration rate from different vegetation type.